1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a music processing method, a music processing apparatus and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, because of the improved performance of information processing apparatuses, digitized music data has been used in new ways. One of the new ways of the usage is remixing. In general, remixing refers to a method for combining an entire or a part of plural pieces of music to compose a new entire music. Although remixing itself has been performed in the past, it becomes easier for users who do not have any dedicated devices to remix music data using a PC (Personal Computer) so that more users remix data and more remixed data are exchanged among the users. Further, a slide show, in which music is played in association with scenes of displayed pictures or slides, is one of the new usages of music data. Such slide shows have been widely used in presentations at events and product promotions.
When music data is used in remixing or slide shows, using metadata attached to the music data is effective. Metadata includes not only static data such as a title and an artist name but also data obtained by a time-series analysis of the music data, such as rhythms, beat positions, length or position of bars, chord progressions, and melody types. When such time-series metadata is used, it becomes easier to extract a specific bar from the music data or adjust rhythms and beat positions.
Further, other users who simply enjoy playing music can take advantages of usage of metadata. For example, it is effective to use characteristics of music indicated by metadata to quickly search desired music data among huge amount of pieces of music data stored in a mass memory medium such as a hard disk or a flash memory.
In this point of view, technology for generating metadata related to music data or supporting usage of metadata has been developed. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-248895 discloses a metadata creation apparatus capable of automatically extracting beat positions or a head position of a bar in music data and providing the data to users so that the users can correct the data easily. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-164932 discloses a music editing apparatus capable of appropriately adjusting a timing to play music data by using metadata such as beat positions applied to the music.